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The Battalion
STUDENT TRI-WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE
The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and
Mechanical College of Texas and the city of College Station, is
published three times weekly from September to June, issued
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings; also it is published
weekly from June through August.
Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at College
Station, Texas, under the Act of Congress of March 8, 1879.
Subscription rate, $3 a school year. Advertising rates upon
request.
Represented nationally by National Advertising Service,
Inc., at New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and
San Francisco.
Office, Room 122, Administration Building. Telephone
4-5444.
1940 Member 1941
Associated Collegiate Press
Bob Nisbet Editor-in-Chief
George Fuermann Associate Editor
Keith Hubbard Advertising Manager
Tom Vannoy Editorial Assistant
Pete Tumlinson Staff Artist
J. B. Pierce, Phil Levine Proof Readers
Sports Department
Hub Johnson Sports Editor
Bob Myers Assistant Sports Editor
Mike Haikin, Jack Hollimon
W. F. Oxford Junior Sports Editor
Circulation Department
Tommy Henderson Circulation Manager
W. G. Hauger, E. D. Wilmeth .... Assistant Circulation Manager
F. D. Asbury, E. S. Henard Circulation Assistants
Photography Department
Phil Golman Photographic Editor
James Carpenter, Bob Crane, Jack Jones,
Jack Siegal Assistant Photographers
THURSDAY’S EDITORIAL STAFF
George Fuermann ... Acting Managing Editor
Seorge Woodman Assistant Advertising Manager
Junior Editors
Tom Gillis D. C. Thurman V. A. Yentzen
Reportorial Staff
Lamar Haines, John May, Z. A. McReynolds, J. D. Mehe-
gan, L. B. Tennison, Mike Speer, James F. Wright.
SATYRDAY’S EDITORIAL STAFF
Barle A. Shields Managing Editor
#. R. Harrison Assistant Advertising Manager
Junior Editors
Will O. Brimbsrry W. C. Carter - Don Gabriel
Reportorial Staff
Charles Babcock, Herbert Haile, Paul Haines, Carl Tan
Book. i. J. Keith, Z. A. McReynolds, Beverly Miller, E hr hard
MKhendorf, Jack Nelson, L. B. Tennison.
Taxes for Two
The United States treasury department has
just launched a drive to sell United States savings
bonds.
They can be bought in denominations ranging^
from $25 to $1,000 and are thus fitted to the reach
of purses in every walk of American life. And it
is from every walk in American life that the cam
paign to get money for the government is going
to take its toll. Somehow despite billions and bil
lions of dollars being bandied about in the head
lines, the actual cost of recovery from the depres
sion and entry into the present arms race with Hitler
has not been felt by the average citizen, It will be,
and soon.
Income taxes are at present the most obviously
hiked tax mean. Theaters and other luxuries are
only beginning to feel their share. When the United
States begins paying for everything it has bought
it is going to be felt.
It may not be an exaggeration in the near
future to lay down your money at a theater ticket
office and get back two tickets and a receipt for
building costs on a lightweight battle cruiser.
—Michigan State
Current Temper of Youth
(Editor’s Note: The following article first ap
peared in the College Maroon in a column, “The
Hill and the Plain,” by James C. Cleveland. It has
since been called a significant item in judging the
current temper of American college youth.)
OUT OF THE REVELRY of the senior class beer
party last Friday night there has come an idea too
tragic for laughter, too symbolic to be overlooked,
too clever to be ignored. The idea came from the
brilliant mind of Bob Blackmore, Phi Bete and draf
tee-elect for the month after a date that once spell
ed for him the beginning of life and a chance for
happiness and success.
The idea has met with approval of varying de
grees from every senior I have talked to. The idea
has had suggested revisions yet still stands original,
penetrating and overwhelmingly expressive. The
idea is not bitterly partisan, nor hopelessly resign
ed. It has the saving grace of acceptance yet at
the same time poignant indictment. The idea voices
college youth of 1941 as I have never heard it voiced
before. It is college youth of 1941.
The idea has to do with our senior class gift.
It is simply that the gift this year shall be a sum
of money to erect at a suitable occasion a fitting
memorial to the first member of our class killed
in the war.
Added suggestions have poured in. For example
it has been suggested the memorial be to the first
conscientious objector thrown in jail. Others have
said it should be to all members of the class killed.
Restrictions have been suggested the members must
be killed in action, or perhaps in this hemisphere.
Perhaps the money shouldn’t be wasted and some
fund started but named for the first casualty. And
so it goes.
Bob Blackmore, who started it all, just shrugs
his shoulders. He is still going to be called up in
July for an army that he feels may well be misused.
He started the idea he says as a joke. Many people
would like to think that’s all it is, a joke. Perhaps
administration pressure will reduce the idea to
just that, a joke.
But to me and many, many more, the idea is
not a joke. It is college youth of 1941, making a
humble and unheeded plea to what is left of sanity
in the country today.
—Associated Collegiate Press
OPEN FORUM
TO MANY AGGIES, Mother’s Day is a day full of
recreational activities, exhibits and demonstrations.
The program of entertainment planned for mothers
each year has met with enthusiastic approval. But
what of the unscheduled events? That which con
cerns Aggies’ conduct.
On Mother’s Day of 1939, we had a picnic lunch
similar to the one planned for Mother’s Day this
year. When lunch was served, there were hundreds
of Aggies crowding around the lunch counters try
ing to get something to eat, and the Mothers had
to stand back from the “thundering herd” and wait
until the crowd had dwindled down before they could
be served.
Let us not make the same mistake again this
year. Let us manifest respect instead of starvation,
for we are not judged alone by our scholastic stand
ards. We have been first to our mothers for a good
many years, so why not make Sunday truly a day
for mothers and let her be first.
—F. M. Edwards, ’42.
Something to Read
BY DR. T. F. MAYO
The Best Biography
THAT DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON is the best known
English personality is due to his biographer, James
Boswell, who may also be described as a fool of
genius. A shortened form of Boswell’s Life of John
son, skimming the cream of this greatest of all
biographies, is about as entertaining and stimulat
ing a book as the College Library (or any library)
contains. The best things in the book, however, are
probably Boswell’s account of the excellent informal
conversations, dominated by the mighty Doctor but
participated in by such men as Edward Burke the
orator, Goldsmith the poet, Garrick the great actor,
Gibbon the historian, and Sir Joshua Reynolds the
painter.
Boswell, a young Scotchman who came up to
London eager to taste the intellectual and social life
of the big city, deliberately attached himself to
the Great Doctor because Johnson impressed him as
the biggest man (in every sense!) he had ever met.
Dr. Johnson, in spite of occasional fits of under
standable irritation, genuinely liked Boswell. The
literary result was a glowing, intimate picture of a
strong, racy, humorous, “human” personality, in a
setting of the best minds of the period.
Just by way of samples, here are some random
bits noted during a recent reading:
Johnson said to Sir Joshua Reynolds: “If a
man does not make new acquaintances as he ad
vances through life, he will soon find himself left
alone. A man, Sir, should keep his frindship in con
stant repair.”
At supper this night he talked of good eating
with uncommon satisfaction. “Some People,” said
he, “have a foolish way of not minding, or pretend
ing not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind
my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I
look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly
will hardly mind anything else.”
Boswell: “I have often blamed myself, Sir, for
not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they
do.” Johnson: “Sir, don’t be duped by them any
more. You will find these very feeling people are
not very ready to do you good. They pay you by
feeling.”
Johnson: “The value of every story depends on
its being true. A story is a picture either of an in
dividual or of human nature in general: if it be
false, it is a picture of nothing.”
Boswell: “I have often blamed myself, Sir, for
there are fifty women in the world, with any one
of whom a man may be as happy as with any one
woman in particular?”
Johnson: “Ay, Sir, fifty thousand.”
As the World Turns..
BY “COUNT” V. K. SUGAREFF
NATIONAL DEFENSE PROGRAM is getting on
a War Basis. We are not coasting any more on the
production of all armaments. Col. J. H. Jouett, pres
ident of the aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of
America, told the annual convention of the Cham
ber of Commerce of the United States, on April
30th, that plane production is catch
ing up with German production. He
said, “Even now, half our output,
coupled with British output, exceeds
Axis plane production according to
best obtainable estimates. “18,000
planes will be produced in the Unit
ed States this year, and 30,000 in
1942. Mr. John D. Biggers, product
ion director of O. P. M.’ spoke be
fore the same body and predicted
that production of powder, rifles,
small arms, machine-guns and tanks
would double, triple and in some
instances go as high as five fold. There is a move
ment on foot that the big corporations subcontract
some of their big orders to small industries. There
are 28,000 industrial establishments which do not
have a single defense contract. Labor too is using
more sober tactics in the defense industries. Pres
ident Roosevelt called recently for two million tons
of shipping to aid Britain. He ordered all machines
and machine tools establishments on twenty-four
hours basis; and his order to the Secretary of War
Stimson, two days ago, for an increased production
of big bombers is indicative that we are fast ap
proaching a capacity war materials production.
The Battle of the Atlantic is becoming a reality.
All our accelerated production of war materials
points that way. The recent German victory in the
Balkans, the attack on the British Empire life lines
in Egypt, the German instigated revolts in the
Near East and the proposed drive on Gibraltar are
but incidents in the war. The real battle of the war
will start with the invasion of the British Isles
if it ever comes. Germany is now supreme on land
and in planes over land. The ultimate issue of the
war, however, is developing as between land and
sea power, and sea and air power. The United
States and Britain are supreme on sea and are
speeding up plane production for a supremacy over
the sea. All-out aid to Britain is then our primary
objective in the battle of the Atlantic. The longer
Britain is able to resist German invasion, the better
are our chances of staying from active participation
in the war. Still, we are determined to convoy our
war materials to Britain. That is bound to bring us
in clash with the Axis powers, should they attack
our ships. Some people think that Hitler will not risk
a war with the United States regardless of provo
cation. Whatever the future developments might be
about the battle of the Atlantic, official Washington
is preparing for the crisis. Cooperation with govern
ment agencies in the national defense program is
obvious. Obstruction of any sort might prove fatal.
It should not be said that the United States, like
France, was “too late.”
Sagaraff
THE BATTALION
-THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1941
World War 1 Flying Ace
Above is Jesse L. Easterwood, Aggie-ex for whom the college’s
rapidly expanding airport is named.
Killed in an airplane accident May 19, 1919, at Coco Sola, Panama
Canal-Zone, Easterwood was cited for bravery during World War I
and is generally recognized as one of the institution’s outstanding
men in the last war’s air service.
Seeing service in three foreign nations, he made 16 successful
raids across the enemy lines and, following his death he was awarded
posthumously the Navy Cross for bravery.
hands of a British man-of-war and
it is through her furious denuncia
tion of Mature as a too-cautious
coward that the story derives its
name.
Life on the high seas is portray
ed here in a rough-and-tough fash
ion, making this a vital story of
action. There is too much fight
ing, however, among both ships
and men, to make it anything but
a man’s picture.
“Tin Pan Alley’ ’is back again
and this time it is accompanied by
“You’re In The Army Now.” These
two will be shown at the Campus
Thursday and Friday.
Regardless of how many times
Orchids
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for the
Senior Ring
Dance
It will pay you to get
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All Other Suitable
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J. COULTER
SMITH
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We Deliver
Phone 2-6725
College Road - Bryan
you have seen “Tin Pan Alley,”
you will enjoy seeing it again. Go
ing to no extremes in either history
or histronics, it merely parenthe
sizes a few years before and dur
ing World War 1, and it punctuat
es them with such pleasant old-
time numbers as “Moonlight Bay”
and “K-K-K-Katy.”
Since the story is no more than
(Continued on Page 4)
Mother’s Day
Sunday
Give Mother a
LaSalle
Wall Lamp
Indirect - Adjustable
Brings the light where
you want it. We have a
complete assortment of
styles and colors.
Bryan - Phone 2-5164
By Carl Van Hook
There will be plenty of water
splashing in The P. L. Downs Jr.
natatorium May 9 and 10 as a
galaxy of swimming beauties, div
ing champions and tank stars swing
into action at the annual Water
Carnival.
Aquatic events of all kinds will
be featured at the carnival besides
the specialty act which is to be
given by Baylor university and the
hilarious antics of clown divers
“Chick” Denny and “Scotty” Pot
ter.
Another interesting event will be
a water polo game played by teams
selected from the new and old
areas.
Opening time is 7:15 for both
nights and the program is schedul
ed to terminate before dance time,
so go down to the natatorium and
cheer the different teams on to
victory.
The benefit show at the Assem
bly hall Friday night will be “Cap
tain Caution” for the Kream and
Kow Club.
This is a picturization of Ken
neth Roberts’ story of the War
of 1812 as it was fought on the
high seas, in this instance mostly
by Victor Mature, a Yankee sea
captain, and Bruce Cabot, a slave
runner with whom money is the all-
important issue.
Louise Platt, daughter of an
American shipowner, is out to
avenge her father’s death at the
TOM ADAMS
BARBER SHOP
“We special in facial
treatments.”
Bryan
LA SALLE
HOTEL
BRYAN, TEXAS
100 Rooms - 100 Baths
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R. W. HOWELL, Mgr.
Class ’97
TO THE CLASS
OF ’42—
We wish to invite you to in
vestigate among fellow stu
dents, to determine your boot
purchase. You will find it is
not advisable to delay.
ORDER NOW
We offer you the finest boots,
plus fast and convenient ser
vice attention.
Holick’s Boot Shop
“A. & M.’s Oldest Firm” - - Estab. 1891
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or at any price
BRYAN CAFE
Bryan Avenue
So much that’s important is happening today—in America,
in Europe, Africa, Asia. And you know about it almost
as soon as it happens!
Trace most any piece of news to its source and some
where you’ll find the telephone or one of its relatives—
radio telephone or teletype in the picture. These speeders
of the news have either benefited from telephone research
or utilize telephone equipment, or both.
In these days, the Bell System is proud that its facili
ties are helping in the fast and widespread dissemination
of news—so essential to enlightened public opinion.